Ghostbusters 2016 bust the fragile male ego

I saw this in Russian. Something may have been lost in translation.

I am not sure what movie everyone else saw, but Ghostbusters (2016) delivered on all fronts – 4 strong female characters, laughs in the first half, ghostbusting action in the last. All of the cameos that Ghostbuster fan could want, and a retread story done in an original way. This is something that should have hit on all cylinders. The only thing that was problematic was fan boy reaction to the film and the way they believed men were being portrayed, which incidentally is how most movies have portrayed women for so long that it is hard to think about men in a less than flattering light.

Kate McKinnon steals 90% of the scenes she is in. Her facial expressions, exuberance and beauty shine through that geeky exterior. It is her sheer weirdness that allows her to bring heat to the big screen. Leslie Jones does a great job with her New York smart character. Chris Hemsworth does a great job at playing dumb. Kristen Wiig was good, and I even liked Melissa McCarthy.

What went wrong?

It’s too bad that the misogynistic male patterned society and its capitalism are allowed to run over films that are better than stupid male-driven ego strokers. Batman Vs. Superman didn’t score a great box office because it was good. It did so because a bunch of teenage, literal and figurative, boys, were able to play out their fantasies while ignoring the fact that the film was dark, poorly written and filled with poor characterizations.

Ghostbusters (2016) didn’t stroke the male ego at all, and it didn’t feature the type of women that the average male audience can drool over. Instead, it gave audiences a funny cast with smart acting and drove men to the sidelines. In short, the film owes its bad reviews to bruised and battered male egos who couldn’t see past their own I’s. And that’s too bad, because if the industry is going to keep rebooting and making sequels, the least it could do is go the direction of Ghostbusters (2016).